Intel is a critical Cisco partner, but also a large and innovative manufacturing customer. Diane Bryant, CIO Intel, was on Cisco booth at EMC World, in Orlando Florida, to witness the large number of visitors interested by our Unified Computing System , and our unified fabric strategy . It was a perfect opportunity to talk about the way she is transforming today the Intel data centers. After a first wave of virtualization, her IT team is diligently implementing the next wave : the consolidation of the fabric . Based on very encouraging results that she shared with me, Diane Bryant is obviously determined to move forward as fast as possible…

At Interop yesterday, Doug Gourlay, Cisco VP Data Center 3.0 Solutions, discussed the status of the standards for next-generation ethernet. In this video he talks about how Cisco customers can get better performance, better density, lower power, and longer distance with subsequent optimizations and how the standards are emerging between Data Center Ethernet and Convergence Enhanced Ethernet.

I met at EMC World in Orlando, Chuck Hollis, EMC’s VP Global Marketing CTO; Parag Patel, VMware’s VP of Alliances, and Ed Bugnion, Cisco’s CTO for the Server Access and Virtualization Business Unit. Ed shared some insights on two important initiatives for the Cisco Data Center 3.0 strategy: Cloud computing and Unified Computing. VMware, Cisco, and EMC work together to deliver products and architecture designed to be deployed at scaleChuck explained to me how the alliance between these three companies is different in a world where the alliances come and go, and what is the EMC unique contribution. Parag highlighted the solutions, such as Cisco Nexus 1000V or Cisco Unified Computing System that this alliance is already delivering Watch the interviews with Chuck and Parag at http://www.cisco.com/go/emcworld09

Yes, its true, Cisco virtual networking goodness is available to one and all. To kick things off, we have worked with the fine folks at VMW to put together a 60-day eval program so you can check things out in your own environment. As a quick reminder, you will need a (free) cisco.com account to access the software (don’t worry, we won’t spam you).

Head over to https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/ to get you 60-day vSphere 4.0 eval license

Go to www.cisco.com/go/1000v to access the design, install and upgrade guides — look for the “Support” box on the upper right part of the page

Go to www.cisco.com/go/1000vdownload a pull down a copy of the software – install it per instructions

James Urquhart, Cisco cloud computing expert, and author of the CNET blog “the wisdom of clouds “ was a panelist at Interop’s Enterprise Cloud Summit, and will talk again on Thursday He shared with us some of the major points of his presentation, covering the Cisco vision of cloud computing, and the benefits for the enterprises.

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